Indeed, there is a lot that goes into this list—which has been published for more than 20 years—especially in the last two years when we have added lots of enhanced features to make for a better viewing experience, digitally. For instance, once again vendors were asked to estimate the percentage of revenue earned in all of their product segments. Coming later this month we will showcase the top five vendors by revenue in each of the seven breakout product categories. What’s more, the Healthcare Informatics 100 complete vendor listings also include: year-over-year revenue comparison charts; key thought leader executives; markets served; major revenue sources; M&A activity from the previous year; and brief descriptions of the companies.

Before I get into my takeaways from the 2017 list—which is of course based on 2016 vendor financial data—I’d like to point readers to a few pieces of content that surrounds The 100. Last week, we released our two Most Interesting Vendor stories on Epic and Optum, obviously both very high health IT revenue earners, and who were picked as “most interesting” by our editorial staff for a variety of reasons. I highly encourage you to read both of these vendor profiles. Also, strategic and financial advisory firm ST Advisors, which helped us compile the list, penned a terrific piece on all of the M&A activity that took place last year in the health IT market. With that, let’s get to the odds and ends of the 2017 Healthcare Informatics 100.

The top 10 holds steady—The 2016 list and the 2017 list had the same four companies at the top, in the same order—Optum, Cerner, Cognizant and McKesson. While there was some moving around in the bottom half of the first 10 vendors, one company that jumped 12 spots, from #21 to #9 was Leidos, reporting an HIT revenue of nearly $1.7 billion, up significantly from $593 million the year prior. In fact, Leidos was named one of our Most Interesting Vendors in 2016 after snaring the Defense Department’s EHR (electronic health record) implementation contract, in partnership with Cerner, the year prior. But the main takeaway here is that the big health IT players are continuing to prove their worth at the top of the market.

Optum #1 yet again—Two years ago, our team changed the submission process for The 100, allowing for health IT revenue that was derived from the payer market to be counted towards the total. What that did is allow Optum, the Eden Prairie, Minn.-based consulting and analytics division of the country's largest health insurer, UnitedHealth Group, to turbocharge to the top of the list. This is the third consecutive year in which Optum topped the list, reporting a health IT revenue of $7.3 billion in 2016. What are the keys to Optum continuing to grow and prosper within The 100? For that answer you’ll have to read my just-published vender profile of them!

Risers and fallers—Who were the vendors that made the biggest jumps and the ones that witnessed the steepest drops? Not counting any new companies to this year’s list (more on those below), the biggest list climbers year-over-year were: Harris Healthcare, which moved up 29 spots (#87 to #58); Sharecare, moving up 20 spots (#73 to #53); Orion, moving up 19 spots (#74 to #55); Softheon, moving up 16 spots (#34 to #18); and the aforementioned Leidos, which moved up 12 spots (#21 to #9).